Sir Keir Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer

Labour — Holborn and St Pancras

Speaking in the House of Commons on 26 March 2025

Debate

Engagements

Contribution

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for sharing his personal experience of this; he is right to do so. My family has lived with disability for many years as well, so I understand the human element. We need to give support to those who need it, we need to help those who want to work into work, and we need to be clear that those who can work should work. In England, we inherited a failed system that could not be defended, but it is also failing in Scotland. The right hon. Member focuses on young people, and 84,000 young Scots—that is 15% of them—are not in employment, education or training. That is terrible. Almost 300,000 Scots are economically inactive due to temporary or long-term illness. What we are doing is taking the steps to help people into work with £1 billion of employment support. The Scottish Government have record funding under the Budget—what are they going to do to help the young Scots who are being failed by their Government?

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